Or did this suggest that Miss Maggie was one, too? Lindsey had said that if the cult still existed, they would try to recruit me.
Was this an invitation?
Another, more cynical possibility dawned on me. Dad had speculated that someone might be trying to boost town tourism. Maggie was the chair of the Heritage Festival Committee, and Kate worked at the chamber of commerce. I’d be hard-pressed to find two people more interested in increasing tourism. Was it a coincidence that Maggie had given me this gift the day after someone had placed talismans in my yard?
I chomped on my lower lip. I could tell Sheriff Jason about the journal full of invisible ink. I should tell him. But pointing fingers at town luminary Maggie Arthur and her granddaughter would mean risking self-sabotage. As the septuagenarian queen of food drives and ladies’ luncheons, Miss Maggie had earned her own historical plaque in the town square. And if not for the babysitting job with Kate, I’d be refilling bins at Country Catfish Buffet. I could kiss any glowing recommendation letters goodbye.
That was before even considering Grandma Kerry’s involvement. What if an investigation of the journal led to the discovery of the mark on her floor?
I couldn’t merge my memories of Grandma Kerry blessing our meals and bandaging my scraped knees with the idea of her involvement in the occult. I knew she would never have hurt anyone. That the authors behind this journal saw themselves as “wardens” and made magical protection charms didn’t comfort me one bit, and it wouldn’t shield Grandma Kerry from posthumous scrutiny.
My grandmother’s involvement, however she was involved, made this complicated. Dragging her memory through the mud without clarifying a few things first would be disrespectful, I decided. I would wait until I had talked to Kate and Miss Maggie to make any moves.
I tucked the journal safely in my desk drawer.
EXCERPT:
PAGANS OF THE PINES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MALACHI RIVERS
Lillian Pickard, 1968
I have done my best to corroborate my experience and Malachi’s claims with public and church records, as well as interviews with others who knew the Rivers family. Yet it came as no shock that most witnesses of Malachi’s strange works tended to demur or avoid me entirely. They fear loss of status, or perhaps the decades have obfuscated their memories, leading them to doubt what they once knew to be true.
I suffer from no such fear or doubt, and neither does Joseph Wooster.
Wooster was a congregant of Calvary Baptist from 1913 to 1916. In March of 1916, twenty-year-old Wooster cornered eleven-year-old Malachi in the food cellar of the parish house. When he touched her, he was immediately stricken with paralysis of the arm. She claimed that he had lifted her dress, while he claimed he had merely touched her shoulder, attempting to pray over her.
He emerged and declared to the congregation that Malachi must have the Devil inside her. Reverend Rivers, however, believed that obsession with miracles and demons led to exuberance and exhibitionism, and was skeptical of Wooster’s accusation. But neither did he believe his daughter’s claim of molestation. Wooster left the church in protest. Malachi had no such freedom.
The church burned down seven days later, consumed by a cooking stove fire that leaped unexpectedly out of control in the parish house while the Rivers family spent their evening together.
When I managed to contact Wooster for an interview, he had not changed his fifty-year-old story, and in fact viewed the murders that occurred in 1921 as activity of the same dark spirits he had hoped to pray out of Malachi.
He never recovered the use of his arm.
SIX
Natalie Colter
ONE MONTH AND EIGHT DAYS UNTIL THE CLAIMING
My language intensified from uncouth to ungodly as I fought my way through after-church traffic.
Kate had finally texted me that morning. She apologized for missing my calls and asked if I could drive Avery to Emmy’s house on my way home from church. She needed a last-minute babysitter and knew I was already committed to the lake trip.
No problem, I responded. But I need to ask you about the journal from Miss Maggie when you have the time.
I don’t know much about it, but she’d adore a visit. She’s busy with the ladies’ luncheon and hosting a festival board meeting at her house today, but you could take Avery to see her when you work tomorrow.
With a sigh, I parked in front of Calvary Baptist to pick Avery up from Sunday school. The ambiance of the stately white church only added to the morbid tales about Malachi Rivers. The pews were rigid as soldiers, the carpet river-of-blood red, and everything creaked at the touch. A local wealthy architect had designed and donated this building after the second church building had met its demise by fire—a fire some said Malachi started. Reverend Rivers had reportedly found the Gothic Revival style of this new building gaudy, but he didn’t protest much, seeing as he got a free church and a newfangled indoor baptistery out of the deal.
Inside the foyer, I passed photographs of balding, bespectacled former pastors and spared only a glance for the sanctuary where mass murder had occurred. Twice. How did people attend services here like nothing had happened?
Fighting a shiver, I turned right at the end of the foyer. Through the open door of the fellowship hall, I saw women gathered around tables and heard Miss Maggie preparing to lead them in a prayer over their lunch.
Briefly, before she bowed her winter-white head, we locked gazes. She smiled, but her eyes were sharp as evergreen needles. Before, I’d thought of her as a sort of strict but doting fairy godmother figure. Now, I sensed an appraisal. By giving me that journal, she hoped something would change. What did she want from me? Could this venerated woman possibly be capable of evil? Poisoning wine? Sacrificing animals? Murder?
Screeches from the nearby nurseries scrambled my thoughts. When I reached the preschool room with the Noah’s Ark mural, the teacher sagged with relief. She already had Avery’s polka-dot backpack ready to go. “I’m so sorry,” she said, passing it over the gate.
“For what?” I asked. And then I saw Avery. Her glasses were streaked with silver paint. She wore spray-painted cardboard armor of God, complete with a sword of the Spirit. It was not a good idea to give Avery a weapon, even a flimsy one.
“We thought all the paint was dry before we gave them the armor,” the teacher said. “I tried, but I can’t get it off her glasses. Her parents are going to—”
“I’ll take care of it,” I promised.
She nodded, on the cusp of crying tears of relief. Bless her—one preschooler was more than enough responsibility for me.
“Looks like we’ll be throwing Emmy in the deep end,” I muttered as I helped a whining Avery buckle into the booster seat in the back of the gray truck I’d inherited from my dad, careful not to smash her breastplate of righteousness.
On the drive, I rolled down the windows to the let the sharp paint odor subside.
The Langfords lived on ample acreage along Midnight Road. Their house was idyllic, ivory with blue shutters and nestled near a rash of trees. I had visited once to tutor Emmy at Mr. Langford’s invitation, and once when Mom had enlisted me to help her group of parent volunteers make homecoming mums.
Avery dragged her feet as we mounted the porch steps. When I knocked, she pressed her face into the skirt of my yellow sundress.